Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Did Luther intentionally post the '95 Theses' to the church door in Wittenberg on the eve of All Hallows (a.k.a. All Saints), or was it a happy coincidence? I suspect it was intentional as that was a spiritually charged date in the church calendar, a fact Luther would have been all too aware of (not to mention that the Schlosskirche was dedicated to All Hallows, which, combined with its extensive collection of relics, would have had the town humming with visitors that day). All Hallow's Eve marked beginning of Allhallowtide, a three day festival period in the medieval church which, by the late middle ages, had come to be swathed in superstition. These superstitions arose from the practice of devoting this time to praying for, offering alms for, doing works of penance for and purchasing indulgences for the souls of the dead in Purgatory.

This focus on the dead led to the telling of ghost stories becoming a popular custom at this time. Ghosts were believed to be a visitation of the dead to this world to remind relatives of the need for prayers and other religious works to be offered for them - including, most importantly, the sacrificial work of the mass - so that their souls might obtain sufficient merit to pass from Purgatory to Heaven. While we may be temtped to consign these superstitions to the past, they in fact persist to this day in some Roman Catholic circles: a parishioner advised me in all seriousness that a Catholic relative received a phone call from her dead husband admonishing her for not having masses for the repose of his soul said!

It was not for nothing, then, that Luther labelled "poltergeists" as the fifth in his list of abuses of the church of Rome which had thankfully been rooted out among the Evangelical churches (Exhortation to All Clergy Assembled at Augsburg, 1530, LW 34:54). Luther's rediscovery of the Gospel freed the church not only from the false doctrine of salvation by works (or faith + works) but also from these related sub-Christian superstitions and practices by which a fearful people were held in bondage to a false notion of the way of salvation.

One does not suggest that the Roman hierarchy today approves of such superstitions, but it should be noted that the whole apparatus of Purgatory, including the efficacy of masses, alms, prayers and penitential works offered for the "poor souls" there, remains very much a part of Roman doctrine and practice (cf. 'Catechism of the Catholic Church', para. 1032). How all this co-exists after the much touted "breakthrough" of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which supposedly achieved "substantial agreement" on the doctrine at the heart of the Gospel, is something I've never received a clear answer to from either Lutheran or Catholic theologians who support it. The usual response is the admonishment to be patient for "Rome takes time to change". Rome change? Is she not rather semper eadem? Rome will never change what it erroneously regards as a part of the deposit of faith entrusted to her. In light of this, celebrations of Reformation Day are not out of date, but as relevant as ever - for the sake of the Gospel.

Monday, 26 October 2015

"Justification is both a problem and solution. Oswald Bayer has described human existence as forensically structured. That is to say, that life demands justification. Listen to the way people respond when confronted with a failure. It is the language of self-defense, rationalization, or blaming. No human being wants to be wrong. Or listen to the eulogies delivered at the memorial rites for unbelievers. They are, more often than not, attempts to vocalize why the deceased person’s life was worthwhile. They seek to justify his or her existence. If one is not justified by faith in Christ, one will seek justification elsewhere in attitude or action.

To confess your sin is to cease the futile attempt to self-justify. Rather it is to join with David in saying to God: “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you might be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Psalm 51:4). In confession, the sinner acknowledges that God is right. It is to agree with God’s verdict: Guilty."

Saturday, 10 October 2015

'The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-rational. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it—as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. The Church of England can remain a church only if she retains this opaque element. If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion.' C.S. Lewis, Priestesses in the Church?

Welcome to the Virtual Old Manse

"Glosses from an Old Manse"? These days one can assume nothing, so... a "manse" (from the Latin mansus, meaning dwelling) is the customary name of the residence of a minister of the Gospel in certain Christian denominations. The 19th C. American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne published a collection of short stories titled 'Mosses From An Old Manse'; I've mangled his title for my own purpose here, which is to record my notes or 'glosses' (from the Latin glossa via the Greek γλῶσσα, being interpretive notes written in the margins of a manuscript) on theology and church life. Thus, "Glosses From An Old Manse"; think of it as an on-line common-place book which I share, with some trepidation, with those who cross the threshold of the virtual old manse.

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